You wouldn't have thunk it, would you. In the first months of his first term in office, Trump's critics were able to get my never-Trumper son to admit that the only thing that makes Trump look good is his critics. Nothing has changed, despite the shellacking the Left got in November. It's still pretty much scream Trump Nazi Holocaust with F-bombs and then refuse to do anything else.
I did arrive at one conclusion after the election. If you're going to so flagrantly ignore or downplay or mock the suffering of tens of millions just because your guy is the one in the White House, make sure they're not tens of millions of registered voters.
Nonetheless, though the Obama years marked that moment when the post-Western Left came out of the closet and made its desires for a post-Western world openly known, it's been rough sailing for them since. Part of it is, I think, something I noticed some years ago. Since the Left holds the orb, the scepter and the crown (entertainment, media, education), it's easy to miss its mistakes since none of the institutions that should be speaking truth to power are going to do so when the power is theirs. So you can make fools of yourselves, fail miserably, and more or less do terrible things and feel it's OK since the traditional outlets charged with calling you out won't do so.
But that only goes so far. As we saw in 2016. As we saw last year. As sane people are learning, among that number being Senator Fetterman. As for the rest of the Left? It's not looking promising.
Note the assumption. The assumption is that these 'white men' have been threatened by the gains of women and minorities. Now, is this what these white men have said? Have they said their complaints are based on feeling so threatened? Are there any editorials by these white men stating that they feel threatened, which is why they're complaining? I don't recall ever hearing any white man say he feels threatened by the gains of women or minorities. Yet note the ease with which this claim is almost on par with John 3:16 in terms of its quotability in the progressive narrative.
Fact is, preemptive assumption of bad motives and similar character defects has long been a primary weapon for progressives. You know, a man who questions the feminist juggernaut is merely threatened by women asserting themselves or succeeding. People who question normalizing non-heterosexual sex are accused of being homophobic bigots. Men who questioned it were accused of being closet homosexuals themselves. People concerned about the negative developments in our modern society are told they're only scared about losing their white privilege. Those who wonder if a Muslim going on a killing spree in the name of Allah could have something to do with his being a Muslim are smacked down as being motivated by Islamophobic bigotry. The point is, always assume some defect of character or morally problematic motivation for questioning anything to do with leftwing and liberal narratives or activism.
It reminds of a CNN discussion in 2016. Wolf Blitzer was the host. They were discussing the whole Rise of Trump campaign as we headed into the election. During the debate, one of the token conservatives brought up the rising suicide rates among white men in America. Without missing a beat, one of the women on the panel simply waved him aside, insisting it's just a factor of whites upset about losing their privilege. You know, not men who happened to be white actually struggling or suffering or such. Nope. Just racists sad to be losing their chance to be racists. She didn't even pretend to care. I imagined her dismissive attitude went a long way toward showing why Trump was gaining appeal.
I should mention that this sort of rhetorical claptrap prompted an early step that turned me from my proud days as a self-proclaimed liberal agnostic. In a winter quarter class in 1988, we were assigned to give a speech before the class touching on a hot button social issue. I chose an issue that was making waves then, a pushback against Affirmative Action driven by white business contractors losing their bids purely because they were white. It was my early encounter with the term 'reverse discrimination'.
As a liberal I supported Affirmative Action, but I also believed that any discrimination because of gender or race was wrong, never caring for the term 'reverse' discrimination. To me it was just discrimination based on accident of birth, and so wrong. I said in my speech there was a kernel of truth to the objections and if not acknowledged, it could eventually end up bringing down the whole of Affirmative Action.
Wow. You'd think I praised the Holocaust. One girl even got up and joked she's sitting on the other side of the classroom away from me (to much laughter of course). The only one who defended me was an older African American woman who said she wouldn't want to think her sex or race was why she got where she wanted to go. Certainly my very white professor didn't defend me. Though I got a decent grade (a B of sorts if I recall), she wrote something across the top of my paper that stunned me: "Why are you so afraid of women and minorities?" I was more than offended, and spent an hour after class arguing with her, eventually asking her if she's so worried about minorities why doesn't she leave her cushy tenured position and give it to a minority? FWIW, it was then that I first thought of what I've come to call the Left's cherished Proxy Martyrdom - hang your righteousness on causes that only cost other people and never yourself. I also learned it's the wise student who keeps his mouth shut when he's nothing more than a schmuck student. Though that lesson was forgotten once I went back to seminary and graduate school some years later.
Anyhoo, I left there more than a little ticked off and for the first time (but not the last), began to rethink the assumption I had been given in our 80s culture that progressive was the way to be because liberals were always the open minded free thinking ones. Which blew up in my face that day. I should point out that the problem wasn't that they said I was factually wrong, or my reasoning was bad, my arguments were poor, or it was a bad speech. No. Those I could believe. It was the accusation that I was - afraid. Scared you know. That they negatively judged what motivated my concern with nothing to go by other than I dared think outside of the progressive box. I chaffed at that then, and have never stopped as I came to realize just how universal this leftwing tactic is. As the good Ms. Lipman demonstrates all too well with its causal use in that opening sentence of her little rant.
I'll let others dissect the implication that somehow white men have no business complaining because they are white men, gender and ethnicity being all important for modern liberals in determining who can do what. For me, it was a reminder of a grave moral defect that has defined so much of the progressive discourse. A defect I've witnessed since I began paying attention on that cold winter day all those years ago.
So there was some disagreement about my post here regarding how we should react to the purges being wrought upon our bloated government bureaucracy. I expressed concern that our approach to certain professions, institutions, and those therein has been counterproductive. I also stated that I'm not a fan of mocking those who were just informed it's to the unemployment line for them.
First, thanks for keeping it civil. I never mind disagreements. One of the best parts of the Internet if used correctly - finding out that your carefully constructed ideas might not always pass the first test when contacting other views.
With that said, I think I wasn't far from the mark, even if some might quibble with a few details. There are two basic reasons for my concern about the reactions I'm seeing from those to the right of center. One is based on consistent principles, one on practical observations. Since the first post ended up looking at the more practical lesson of this approach not working, let's handle the principles part in this post.
First, my point wasn't that we can't - and shouldn't - look at the hot mess dumpster fire that is the modern status quo and its disastrous lack of ability to move our society forward. I have no problem cutting waste, undoing the abuses we saw, holding people accountable, putting an end to the mendacity of people arguing that free speech is dangerous because it might enable those fascists over there. And people, including conservatives, were right to look aghast at the treatment given to people who were suffering over these last several years. I think the outrage at that abuse was more than warranted, and the Left paid a big price for the haughty intolerance we witnessed for the last decade or so. But here's the thing. Let's step back to some story time for a minute, and then perhaps you'll see where I'm coming from.
I entered seminary in 1993. Contrary to lame media stereotypes, all Evangelicals are not the same. Nor are they all rightwing Republican conservatives. In fact, theological and social and political liberalism were well represented at the seminary when I came through the doors in my first J-Term in July, 1993. J-Terms being crash courses where an entire semester is crammed into three weeks in the respective 'J' months.
I entered the J-Term before Dr. Al Mohler began as president of the seminary. He brought in both a conservative, and a Calvinist, revival that sought to put an end to the influence that the more liberal elements of the denomination had enjoyed for the previous decade or two.
When I first arrived there, many of the students, and those professors who were a bit more conservative, told a tale of woe about their experiences during the previous years. They were marginalized, mocked, made fun of. Conservative professors were often hounded out of the seminary and had difficulty getting hired in the first place. Liberals held the power and used it unjustly, shutting down debate and hamstringing an open academic environment that allowed all views to be represented. Fair enough. Those were valid complaints, especially if the problems were coming from the top down.
But guess what happened once Dr. Mohler came into his office. That's right. Those same conservatives immediately began culling the herds of the more liberal professors and even entire departments. Professors were pressured to leave. No new professors anywhere close to center left were hired. And within a couple years, most had been eliminated and the few straggling students who were close to the left were as ostracized as a communist at a McCarthy cookout. So many professors were eliminated that when I went back to get my PhD in historical theology, there weren't enough qualified professors to fulfill the requirements for a tract in that subject.
Now, I have never liked that sort of thing. That 'you're stupid and evil for doing what is just fine when I do it' that has been mother's milk for the post-Western Left, but a cancerous rot on the rectitude of our society. It reminds me of this scene in the television series MASH. An AWOL solider trying to get home to his unfaithful wife holds up in the camp's mess tent during the weekly services. When the MPs arrive to take him back, he invokes the protection of sanctuary. The problem is, that appeal doesn't work in a mess tent church. Fr. Mulcahy, however, takes his side and demands every chance be given to him as they call up the chain of command for a second, third and even fifth opinion. During this time, the MPs get angrier, and those trying to help more desperate. Finally, the final word comes from the top - a mobile mess tent church does not warrant sanctuary in this case. And this is what happens next:
That's something I think the Christian Faith should tell the world as we witness all those lofty ideals the World has used against the Faith over the last century now being tossed aside like so many old shoes.
But the point is, don't claim a principle or idea when it is convenient, and then toss it aside when not. If you've followed me for any time, you'll know I'm convinced that the lack of integrity that defines our modern age is one of our modern age's Achilles heals. The idea that we can talk out of all three sides of our mouth, invoke 'words speak louder than actions', follow the 'do as I say, not as I do ' principle, or just call people sinful bastards because they call people sinful bastards, all chip away at the ability to ground the Church, society, our nation, even our families in a deeply rooted stone foundation that will stand against the storms and challenges of life and history.
During the last four years, the Left became almost giddy over its willingness to tell people to screw themselves when they were suffering or in some ways harmed by the developments being driven by our progressive institutions. At best, tens of millions of Americans were ignored who were suffering under the Biden administration, from Covid measures, from the border crisis, from rampant crime rates, from the disastrous skyrocketing inflation, all while watching the world blow itself halfway to hell and America stand by impotently unable to do anything about it.
At worst you actually had those on the Left - including Christians and Catholics - openly mock and attack those trying to speak to the suffering. I lost track of how many times I saw people informed that any concern on their part about floundering job prospects was merely the result of crying over losing their white, often male, privilege. Charges of racism, sexism, phobic bigotry, and anything under the sun were leveled at people observing that Biden seemed a bit slow on the draw or that the immigration crisis is hurting people on both sides of the border. Women concerned about being put upon by men in women's garb? Comes from being a transphobic fascist, don't it. Sucks to be you people I guess, get used to the street because that's where you belong having been part of the oppressing class for so many years. That approach to people hurting was something conservatives rightly condemned and, quite frankly, benefited from in November.
Again, I have no problem asking workers to account for their daily work, or cutting excess waste in anything, or even burning the Department of Education to the ground because it's clearly failed and failed miserably in its mission.
With that said, let's not forget these are people we're talking about. Because that was a major lament and valid criticism from the Right over the last four years. These women objecting to being thrown up against men in athletic competitions, or shower rooms for that matter, are real people. People being hurt by the crime and general upheaval brought by the immigration crises are people. Those who lost their jobs and livelihoods because of the lockdowns were people. People who were often ignored by the Left/Press, and sometimes outright mocked and derided as they watched their prospects dwindle, were people nonetheless.
So let's not turn right around do the same thing. Beyond admitting that not everyone being impacted is a leftwing commie, it's enough to acknowledge that many are no doubt just people. People trying to get by and earn a living. The importance of working hard and providing for a family is itself praiseworthy. People who are doing what conservatives value - trying to work hard, provide for the family, and make a better life for themselves and their loved ones - should be celebrated in this day and age. Even if it's in the government, schools, or heck, the media. Even, dare I say, if it's done on the other side of the aisle.
Conservatives gained the upper moral hand by pointing out the suffering over the last several years, and rightly condemning the outright smugness and dismissiveness of the Left to that suffering, not to mention those on the Left telling the ones suffering that they were getting what they deserved. Now don't do the same thing. Not because of the obvious fact that this could backfire on us - once again - in a few more election cycles. But because it's the right thing to do. As conservatives made clear for the last several years.
NOTE: I removed the last paragraph, in which I mused on the broader implications of the Christian call by invoking the Good Samaritan. One of the great teachings, it can be used to unpack an endless number of teachings and principles for the aspiring Christian. But in so doing, it can also bring many different views and discussions to the table. When the first comment out of the box is about that, I don't want a postscript paragraph to become the focus. Not that there is a problem with the comment. It's certain a fair one and a valid point. I've just learned that sometimes, on the Internet, you can write out War and Peace, and then add a Sunday comic as an afterthought, and the comic becomes the focus. So in deference to the larger point of not doing what we so rightly condemned when done by the Left, I'll bring that last paragraph back some other time when we can look at that most famous of parables and have at it.
